


don't know just how it happened

by wariangle



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 03:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wariangle/pseuds/wariangle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't know just how it happened

**Author's Note:**

> For the Smoaking Canary Appreciation Week on tumblr.

**I.**

It wasn't supposed to go like this. According to the plan (which, admittedly, may have been rather hastily drawn up and not completely water-proof) Oliver and Diggle would be in charge of leading away Bastian's men while Felicity sneaked in to access his database with Sara joining her for protection.

It was supposed to be an in and out mission - quick and easy. But somewhere, somehow, something goes wrong and Felicity is barely halfway through downloading the information from Bastian's computer to her flash drive when loud voices suddenly echo in the supposedly empty building.

"Stay down," Sara urges her and disappears from the room, bow staff ready in her hands.

"What's this bitch doing here?" she hears someone yell and then there a thump and a scream that thankfully isn't Sara's.

Felicity holds her breath and tries to get a glimpse of what's happening through the door, but to no avail. She mentally wills the download to go faster, frantically whispering "Come on, come on, _come on_ ," under her breath.

A soft ping is heard when the download finally finishes and Felicity yanks the flash drive out, gathers her things, and rushes out the door.

"Run, Felicity!" Sara yells and Felicity turns only to see Sara coming towards her, followed by six armed men. They're still a bit away and impeded by the two unconscious guards Sara's left in her wake, but even so they are gaining steadily.

Felicity turns and runs blindly. Sara catches up with her and grabs hold of her arm, and Felicity steers mindlessly to the left, hazily remembering something about an elevator from when she looked over the building plans when they were plotting out this _spectacularly botched_ mission.

Her memory proves correct - the elevator is just a quick sprint down the corridor, and when Felicity throws herself on the button, the elevator doors slide open with a misplaced cheerful chime.

"This never happens," Felicity says dazedly as Sara drags her into the elevator. "Honestly, that has never happened to me in my entire life. I _always_ have to wait for the elevator. It's like a cur..."

Sara interrupts her. "We need to get up," she says and hits the button of the topmost floor.

"Up?" Felicity asks. "What are we supposed to do up there?" She is already beginning to sweat, just at the mention of the word 'up,' her breathing growing shallow and hasty.

Sara is still holding on to her arm, but now her hand slides slowly down to gently take Felicity's.

"Are you scared of heights?" she asks softly.

"Not as scared as I am of angry thugs with guns trying to kill me," Felicity says, trying to but on a brave face, but the tremor in her voice betrays her.

The elevator stops and they're out on the roof, Felicity's hair whipping in the wind and preventing her from see much, which might just be a blessing.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," she mumbles, throat closing up in panic, as Sara leads her to the edge. Her fingers are clutching at Sara hard enough to leave bruises. "I've changed my mind," she says. "I prefer the heavily armed thugs downstairs. On the ground. Away from this very high roof." The last words comes out garbles when she starts all but hyperventilating, her vision blurring. She hasn't even looked down: it's enough glimpsing the city around and realizing how high up they are.

"It will be fine," Sara tries to calm her as she fastens a rope to the railing.

"No," Felicity says, shaking her head so violently she makes herself dizzy with it. Her eyes are clenched shut. "No, no, no."

"Here, hold on to me," Sara says, wrapping Felicity's arms around herself. Felicity hides her face in the crook of Sara's neck. "Trust me, okay?"

"We're going to _die_."

"No, we're not," Sara says firmly. "Not if we jump. If we stay, then yes, we may die. Hold on to me. One, two..."

Before she says 'three,' Sara jumps and Felicity cannot help the sound that rips from he throat as the ground disappears beneath her feet for a second before they land on the street with a heavy thud. Felicity's stomach lurches horribly and wills herself not to be sick. Sara holding her close and tucked up firmly against her body is the only reason Felicity doesn't fall flat on her ass.

"See," Sara says. "We're fine. Okay? We're fine."

Lifting her face from Sara's neck, Felicity grabs Sara's chin with a trembling hand and mashes their mouths together in a frantic kiss, Sara stumbling back half a step in utter surprise.

Felicity jerks away, face flaming and heart plummeting in her chest, and suddenly the jump from a fricking roof feels as if it was easy as rain in comparison to Sara's rejection. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!" she says. "You know how it is - near-death experience, adrenaline high, and then I had dinner, like, really early today so my blood sugar's kind of low, and..."

Sara kisses her, gently and quickly - a soft slide of mouths and her tongue passing briefly over Felicity's lower lip - before she grabs hold of her hand anew and says, "We should get out of here."

Felicity agrees wholeheartedly. "Let's hide out at my apartment," she says, even though it's far on the other side of town, and Sara laughs and pulls her in for another quick kiss before they disappear into the night.

  


**II.**

Felicity's insides are a mess of slow burning excitement and paralyzing nervousness when she meets Sara outside the restaurant. She spent too long in front of her closet picking out a dress so she is a few minutes late and slightly too warm from the swift walk between her apartment and the restaurant.

"Hi," Sara says, her lips brushing Felicity's cheek. She doesn't seem nervous at all - a smile is tugging at her lips, but other than that she looks cool and collected. Of course, a retired professional assassin moonlighting as vigilante probably isn't that fazed by a _date_.

They are shown to their table and Felicity puts her napkin in her lap, smoothes it out almost obsessively with her hands to have something to keep her eyes on, something to do. No matter how old she gets or how many first dates she's been on, she reverts back to her awkward teenage self every time, wishing herself far away and wondering why anyone would be willing to date the blabbering mess that is her in the first place.

After a few excruciating moments of tense silence, Sara's hand takes her where it lies on the table, thumb stroking across the back of it.

"Relax," she says. "It's just us."

Felicity turns her hand so their fingers can lock together. "Yes, exactly," she says quietly without looking up, unwilling to let Sara understand exactly how long Felicity's had a crush on her, how important this is to her, how heartbroken she would be if tonight does not go well.

Sara's fingers squeezes hers in response.

"It's kind of silly, that we're doing this," Felicity blurts after the silent stretches too long again. It's a little more amiable this time, but any silence is hard for Felicity to endure for long. "I mean, we already know each other. Saved each others' lives, bled on each other, stitched each other up. I even let you borrow my tablet once."

Sara laughs, but her eyes remains serious. "Yes," she says, "but this is nice. I don't have much normalcy in my life. I can't remember the last time I just went out to eat, never mind with a beautiful woman."

Felicity's cheeks grow warm from Sara's flirtations and she quickly grabs her glass of water for a sip, spilling a few droplets on the table cloth. "Me either," she says. There's been a lot of take-out in her life of late, but very little dining out. "Also, the last person I wanted to date got struck by lightning and turned into a superhero with weird powers and abs. At least you're just a retired professional assassin that defeats felons as a hobby. Definitely a step up on the normalcy scale."

Sara laughs again and Felicity decides its something Sara should be doing more often because it is a gorgeous sound. Felicity would happily spend the rest of her life coaxing it out of her at least seven times a day.

"Let's get something to eat, shall we?" Sara says and waves over the waiter hovering nearby.

Felicity orders lobster for main course and hopes she will have room for dessert after it because she's really in the mood for some tiramisu.

The initial awkwardness seems to have been bypassed and the conversation flows easily between them, almost, but not quite, as it usually does in the foundry or during missions. It is different in here, in this context, flavored with anticipation and longing and charged in a way it never has been before.

After a shared bottle of wine, Sara presses her knee between Felicity's legs, a heated promise in her eyes, and Felicity shifts imperceptibly in her seat, spreading her legs just a little bit further under the table.

"Dessert," she says, sounding a little strangled. She has seen waiters pass by with what must be the tiramisu all night and it looks so good. Almost good enough to ignore Sara's smoldering gaze and the teasing pressure of her knee against the insides of her thighs.

"I have ice cream," Sara says. She takes Felicity's hand and presses a kiss to her palm. It's a small, innocent touch, but it nevertheless sends a heavy pulse of pure want through Felicity.

"All right then," Felicity says, almost knocking over her glass of wine in her sudden hurry to rise.

She doesn't get more than halfway, however, before Oliver is next to their table, making her yelp in shock. He's looking haggard and is bleeding from a small cut in his forehead, drawing glances from around the restaurant. His untucked shirt and all over ruffled appearance suggests that he changed out of his Arrow leathers just to get inside the restaurant. An emergency, then. Dammit.

"Answer your damn phones," he hisses and drops something in Felicity's lap. Upon picking it up she sees that its a bullet in a plastic bag - a bullet engraved with a small rendering of a lily. Not a usual bullet, in other words.

"I need you both," Oliver says.

"But we're..." Felicity tries.

"We have a killer on the loose," Oliver says and he's back to hissing. "Felicity, trace that bullet. Sara, we're going hunting."

Felicity sighs, pocketing the bag and dropping her napkin on the table with a wistful look at first Sara and then the tray of desserts a waiter just passes by their table with.

"I really do like this normalcy thing we got going," she says sardonically to Sara.

  


**III.**

There is a weird scratching sound coming from Felicity's living room window and she stands frozen in the doorway to the kitchen, frantically wondering what the best plan of action is here: to pull apart the curtains and see what it is or to simply run as far as she can get in the opposite direction? And where the hell are all the vigilantes, assassins and ex-military folk she knows when she actually needs them?

The window swings open, sweeping the curtain aside, and Sara climbs inside. She neatly closes the window behind her and adjusts the curtain, as if breaking in through Felicity's window in full Black Canary get-up is something she does every night of the week.

"Hi, babe," Sara says and pulls of the mask and the wig, leaving them on Felicity's coffee table as she walks forward for a kiss.

"What are you doing?!" Felicity asks, taking a step back. "Has something happened? Are Oliver and Diggle okay? What...?"

Sara looks puzzled. "Everything is fine," she says.

"Then why are climbing through my window in the middle of the _fricking_ night?"

Sara locks down at herself, then up at Felicity. "I couldn't really use the front door dressed like this," she says, as if it should be completely obvious. "It would blow my cover."

Her explanation does little to appease her girlfriend. "Well, good that you settled for the much more inconspicuous method of _climbing through my window_ , then!" Felicity huffs, but when Sara steps in close for another attempt at a kiss, she grants it, hands automatically going to pull down the zipper on Sara's jacket.

"Inconspicuous is my middle name," Sara says, hands settling on the small of Felicity's back as her teeth gently tug Felicity's bottom lip, opening it up for the slide of Sara's tongue.

"No, it's not, it's Dinah," Felicity mumbles into Sara's mouth.

  


**IV.**

"Sara!" Felicity shouts from the bedroom, busy sorting laundry. "Sara, these have no tags!"

"What?" Sara says, leaning against the doorpost with a pile of action DVDs in her arms.

"These," Felicity holds up her Black Canary clothes, "have no labels. How do I wash them? On what temperature? Can I use fabric softener?"

Sara gives her that smile Felicity knows means Sara thinks she's being adorable. "I don't know," she says. "I usually just wipe the blood off with a washcloth."

Felicity scrunches up her nose. "Ew."

"The life of a vigilante, baby," Sara says. She holds up the DVDs. "Okay if I put these on the shelf next to the TV?"

"That's were I keep my games," Felicity says hesitantly.

"And now we'll keep movies there as well," Sara says.

"Yeah, but..." Felicity looks down on the costume in her lap, picks at the sleeve of the jacket. "I have a system."

"And I have a shitload of movies and no place to put them." Sara's voice lacks edge - it's just filled with exasperation and exhaustion. It's been a week since they moved all her stuff into Felicity's place and Sara just wants to have the damn unpacking over with.

"Well, I didn't expect someone who's been largely homeless for three years to have this much stuff!" Felicity protests and Sara's just _done_.

"Fine," she snaps and slams the DVDs down on the dresser. Ignoring Felicity's call of "Sara, I'm sorry. Sara, come back!" she pulls on her shoes and heads out the front door, shutting it firmly behind her.

  


"That was quick," her father says as Sara shows up on his doorstep, asking if she can crash there for the night.

"You know," he says as he hands her a cup of his patented warm chocolate, "I hated you being together with that idiot Queen. I tolerated the idea of you and Nyssa because at least she took good care of you even if she was a stone-hearted killer who poisoned your sister and kidnapped your mother. But Felicity is altogether a different deal. If you don't fix this, I will fix it for you."

Sara glares at him from where she's curled up on his couch, blowing on the warm drink. "We're too different," she says, because it is true. "We clash and collide."

"You complement each other," Quentin corrects her. "And occasionally, you fight. It's expected. You can't just give up."

"I don't deserve her," Sara says, because that is another things that's true. Felicity is not perfect, but she is _good_. She has no blood on her hands, no darkness in her heart.

"I'm not sure that's up to you to decide," her father says. "And if you think it is, then you need to get over yourself - and fast. A girl like that won't wait around forever."

The thing is, Felicity will. If there is one thing Felicity never does, it's giving up. She's the problem solver, the one who never lets go once she has committed to something. When Sara goes back, Felicity will have cleared space for her movies, even though she knows just as well as Sara that's not what this is about.

"Just go home, sweetheart," Quentin says and Sara nods, puts down the remainder of the chocolate on the coffee table and rises from the couch. Despite her irritation and exhaustion, she sends a thrill every time she remembers that 'home' now means the apartment she and Felicity share.

  


**V.**

It's well past eleven pm when Felicity hears the key in the look. She's already on her way to bed, curled up on the couch drinking a cup of chamomile tea in her pajamas. Sara saunters in with her hair braided back and still in her work-out gear, skin glistening with sweat.

Felicity makes a face as Sara bends down for a kiss. "There is a shower down at the foundry, you know," she says.

"Mhm." Sara's lips brush Felicity's jaw and, despite herself, Felicity's head tilts, allowing Sara to place a series of soft kisses against her throat, up behind her ear. "Our is better," Sara says.

"That is simply not true," Felicity says, because it was Oliver who installed the shower down there and Oliver never does anything by halves, not when he can spend the double to get something ridiculously excessive. Felicity is not complaining, though - it is an awesome shower and far better than their own spluttering excuse for the same.

"Well," Sara mumbles, a hand sneaking beneath Felicity's pajama top to cup her breast. "This one has its perks."

"I just showered," Felicity mumbles. Sara's thumb is flitting over her nipple and she responds to the touch, leaning into it and feeling the first, faint stirrings of arousal inside.

Sara's cheek drags against Felicity's own and Felicity makes a disgusted noise. "And now you're all sweaty again," Sara says.

Felicity grumbles all the way to the bathroom, but lets Sara undress her and gropes greedily at Sara's abs and breasts as she pulls her own clothes of as well.

Sara follows her closely into the shower, her body a line of hot pressure against Felicity's back. She's definitely warmer than the water that always takes far too long to get the right temperature, so Felicity leans back and lets Sara crowd her up against the shower wall as she reaches for the soap.

Slippery hands slide along Felicity's body, more feeling her up than lathering. The water is finally nearing what can be described as hot and when Sara's hands reach her stomach and hips, hands gently gripping as they follow the curves of her waist and hipbones, Felicity is beginning to feel overheated between the water and Sara and her maddening, skilful hands.

She reaches back for a kiss and finds herself turned around and pressed up against the wall again, their mouths meeting in a long, hungry and insistent kiss. Felicity's hands go around to grope at Sara's ass and the ridiculous muscles in her upper thighs, and she thinks, _I'm a lucky girl_.

Sara's muffled laugh informs her that she said it out loud as well, but it was a long time since Felicity actually felt embarrassed by her tendency to mindlessly vocalize her appreciation of her girlfriend's body.

"Are you wet?" Sara asks her in a husky whisper, lips brushing Felicity's ear.

"Yeah," Felicity breathes and groans as Sara's hand move from her hip to her cunt, gently sliding two fingers inside to feel her.

"Fuck, baby," Sara mutters as Felicity clenches around her fingers, desperate to feel her everywhere, down to her toes.

The first time they fucked in the shower, Felicity slipped on the wet tiles, hit her head before Sara had a chance to grab her, and ended up having to let Sara stitch the wound in her scalp together with seven stitches. "I have a sex scar. Do anyone of you have a sex scar?" Felicity had asked Sara, Oliver and Diggle later. None of them had confessed to any sex-related scars and Felicity had looked very smug.

But they are far too practiced at this point and both get off with minimum damage, too out of it to even feel guilty about the way sounds echo in the bathroom and carries to their next-door neighbors. Felicity gives Sara a long kiss before stepping out of the shower, leaving her to actually wash off sparring practice.

Felicity is already comfortably nestled beneath the duvet and half asleep when Sara slides into the bed. The damp ends of her hair brushes against Felicity's face as she leans over to kiss her goodnight.

"Love you, cutie pie," she says and Felicity burrows into her chest, mumbling something that might have been either "Love you" or "Lemme sleep."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://wariangle.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
